In March 2017 Paul took us back to Bermondsey, for a crawl taking advantage of the increasing opening hours of some of the brewery taprooms of the Bermondsey Beer Mile.

We started out at Southwark Brewing, who were, I think the first of the local breweries to start opening on Friday evenings, and at the time of writing they’re open several evenings a week. Unusually for the new generation of craft brewers, the focus of Southwark is on traditional cask ales, and several were on offer; we mostly went for the Session IPA as there would be quite a few more venues to follow, and it was in excellent condition as you would expect.

Further down the railway arches lies Anspach & Hobday, another small craft brewer, this time more focussed on keg beers, generally stronger in content and consequently we downsized from pints for this venue. Some interesting experimentation has been going on at A&H, with beers on offer including a smoked pale ale, sea salt and chilli stout (sounds interesting but didn’t try this one) and a Belgian bitter. There’s always something new to try here and keep you coming back.

Heading deeper into Bermondsey, we came to the next railway arch brewery, Brew by Numbers, which has enlarged its taproom somewhat since I was last here, and added some tasty-looking street food out front for the peckish.We stuck with the slightly smaller servings again, trying a variety of beers between us; I went for a dark beer this time, the coffee & milk stout, which was delicious and definitely left me wanting more.

But, on we go, this time to Ubrew, which is pretty much next door to the previous venue but accessed from the other side. This is a different type of brewery, in which anyone keen to brew can rent a brewing kit and brew their own beer, but with brewery-quality kit and ingredients. Brewing was under way from about three different groups when we visited the taproom, which sells a variety of beer, some brewed on site and some not. I tried a smoked pale ale for the first time (having only heard of such a thing an hour earlier) and it was very good.

I was also very pleased to find in the fridge a 0.5% chocolate stout from Big Drop Brewing;this was pretty good stuff, very tasty for something with such little alcohol. I firmly believe that very low alcohol beers should be widely available in pubs for those times when you want to socialise but can’t drink for whatever reason, or simply want to reduce your alcohol intake for the evening without going home early or switching to water or fizzy drinks. So well done to the guys at Big Drop, I look forward to seeing the Citrus Pale Ale I can spy on your website as being available soon!

We started heading back towards town now, and stopped this time at the Marquis of Wellington, opposite one of the earlier ports of call. For a long time this was a regular backstreet local, but has been renovated into the contemporary style, with a modern interior, good range of drinks, and some excellent-looking pizzas being prepared behind the bar. The beers were from London and included a cask from Southwark brewing and a seasonal beer from Anspach & Hobday, which must have been brewed about 50 metres away, but I was slightly surprised that the pub hasn’t gone even bigger on local provenance; they could probably sell 200 different beers, all brewed within walking distance. Still, pretty impressed with the place, will be back for pizza some time.

We headed next for an old favourite of mine, the Dean Swift in Shad Thames. I do love this place. The beer range is constantly changing, and they think it through; for example I’ve been there to watch Tottenham v Arsenal, and they’ve had Redemption Hopspur (brewed in Tottenham) and Hop Stuff APA (brewed on the Royal Arsenal) next to each other on the bar. Very good work!

A slightly longer walk now as we began to head back towards London Bridge, and called at the Rose. This is a pleasant, upscale place, with a more limited beer range than the previous venues, and just the one handpump; however the beer on, Ringwood’s Mauler, was good. They also have an interesting floor downstairs made out of pennies; my shoes will appear in someone’s photos of the night, as I was asked to pause and pose my feet for a picture on my way to the loos!

More craft beer could be found at the final venue of the night, The Miller. While this may look like a dodgy 60s place from the outside, it’s actually a young and lively venue, and has a good range of ales and other craft beers, including a very long bottled list.

All in all an excellent evening, and time only to agree on the Pub of the Crawl. Unusually we also visited several breweries on this walk, which were all excellent but the award is ‘Pub of the Crawl’ rather than ‘brewery of the crawl’ – frankly all the breweries are excellent. Although we called at my favourite pub, they have been visited and awarded the title previously, so the Marquis of Wellington was voted Pub of the Crawl for breathing new life into this pub in Bermondsey. Congratulations!

Things are moving very fast in the world of London Breweries, so it is time to update our earlier post on the Bermondsey Beer Mile with news on the breweries which have opened since the original post was penned in 2014.

First up, the Southwark Brewery opened its doors not long after our last visit, and a welcome addition it is too. Occupying a spot at the westernmost end of the collection of breweries, the Southwark Brewery is the only one to focus on cask rather than bottled or keg beers, and on entering the spacious bar the sight of a line of handpumps comes as a pleasant surprise. My favourite is the London Pale Ale, a light and hoppy ale of the modern style, a very refreshing pint at 4%, but the brewery has a range extending through a golden ale, a traditional best bitter, and a Russian Imperial Stout.

They also do other beers outside of the house range; when we visited they had Harvard American Pale Ale, named after the Southwark boy-done-good who headed to America and founded the prestigious University, and Bankside Blonde, a blond/golden ale.

The drinking area is generous, and is a great space to spend some time trying the range of beers on offer. It’s open 11am-5pm on Saturdays, and at the time of writing is also open Friday evenings until 8pm, although that is not listed on the website so I would suggest phoning / emailing / tweeting etc. ahead of visiting on a Friday to double check if they’re open.

Another new entrant since the last write-up is Ubrew. Another quite different prospect from the first breweries, Ubrew is an “open brewery”, where individuals join as members to have access to Ubrew’s professional kit and ingredients, and brew their own beer on 50 or 100 litre kit. As per the usual drill for Bermondsey, they have a taproom open on Saturdays, with several craft beers on draught (keg) and a very large selection of bottles from around the world; having just returned from Spain I was keen to see their Spanish offerings and found about a dozen different Spanish craft beers, to give an indication of their range!

The bar is in the heart of the brewery and a couple of teams of self-brewers were busy on their brewing kit while we watched, one of them even having a dog in tow! A number of the members are selling their beer, through the taproom or elsewhere, so in fact this brewery is the home of many microbreweries – I wonder how many full scale breweries will be born here? Pop along to try some brews and spot a future winner.